Boxing

Anthony Joshua Weight Reveal Could Mean Trouble For Jake Paul

Jake Paul might be second-guessing his decision to fight Anthony Joshua right about now.
Grant Young|
Jake Paul
Jake Paul | IMAGO / Pro Shots

One of the first things that boxing fans point to when noticing why Jake Paul's December 19 fight against Anthony Joshua could be dangerous for Paul is the clear weight disparity between these two.

Jake Paul last fought at the 200-pound cruiserweight limit. However, he weighed in at 227.2 pounds for his November 2024 fight against Mike Tyson, and will likely weigh in somewhere around 220-230 pounds to fight Joshua. Joshua, on the other hand, can't weigh in at more than 245 pounds, but can enter the ring at whatever weight he desires.

Joshua's promoter, Eddie Hearn, shared an interesting message when speaking about Joshua's weight, saying, "I spoke to [Joshua] and he was sitting at 265 pounds or something like that. I think I told [Paul's business partner] Nakisa that he was 290 pounds or something like that.

"[Paul's team] said: 'The only thing is that Jake will weigh about 220 pounds and we want AJ to come down in weight.' He's a heavyweight and hasn't cut weight before. They said: 'Look we're not being funny and it's not that we need an advantage but we need you to have some disadvantage,'" Hearn added.

Eddie Hearn is seen during a press conference at The Glasshouse in Surfers Paradise on January 06, 2025.
Eddie Hearn is seen during a press conference at The Glasshouse in Surfers Paradise on January 06, 2025. | IMAGO / AAP

Hearn is alluding to the fact that Paul's team probably would have preferred it if Joshua were at a higher weight at the time he accepted this fight, given that this would indicate he wasn't training at the time and would need to cut a significant amount of weight to reach the contracted 245-pound weigh-in limit.

Anthony Joshua Weight Scale Reveal Suggests Serious Jake Paul Problem

On December 4, Joshua posted a video of himself stepping onto a scale to his various social media channels. It showed that he weighed 110.6 kg, which translates to 243.8 pounds. Therefore, he's already on weight for this fight, despite it being more than two weeks away.

"They must have forgot. I’m used to dealing with big weights & scales. 243.8lbs 🫡," Joshua's post wrote.

The fact that Joshua is already beneath his contracted weight shows that he has indeed been training and won't have to cut any weight before fighting Paul. This proves that he won't be depleted or out of shape when stepping into the ring against Jake, and probably means that Paul will have to face Joshua when he's at his physical peak.

This does not bode well for Jake Paul and might cause anybody who thought Paul could produce an upset against Joshua to second-guess themselves.

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Grant Young
GRANT YOUNG

Grant Young is a Staff Writer for On SI’s Boxing, New York Mets, Indiana Fever, and Women’s Fastbreak sites. Before joining SI in 2024, he wrote for various boxing and sports verticals such as FanBuzz and NY Fights. Young has a bachelor’s degree in marketing and a master’s degree in creative writing with an emphasis on sports nonfiction from the University of San Francisco, where he played five seasons of Division 1 baseball. He fought Muay Thai professionally in Thailand in 2023, loves a good essay, and is driven crazy trying to handle a pitpull puppy named Aura. Young lives in San Diego and was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area.